Bad Wolf
by PrettyCunning
Summary: AU. Fifty years on, and the human Doctor has died. But Rose hasn't.
1. Chapter 1

Fifty years had passed in Rose's world. Fifty years to the day since that day on the beach in Norway. That day had changed everything.

The Doctor, the human Doctor, had promised he would spend the rest of his life with her, that he would age with her, and grow old with her. But he had not kept that promise.

Rose stared through the dark grating out at the world. The world was changing. Her human Doctor, he had changed. he had grown old. He had died. Rose hadn't.

Rose stepped outside into the cold night hair, the smell of the salt water hitting her freshly in the face. Somewhere in the distance a wolf howled. A smile touched Rose's lips and then faded just as quickly as it appeared. The wolves in Norway were now all but extinct. The sound was in her own head. She tilted her face upwards, catching the light of the moon. Her skin was clear, pale, and didn't appear a day older then it had over twenty years ago. But the years had been cruel.

Rose had been shot by an alien in the year 2012. That was the year that Rose and the human Doctor had first known for sure that something was different. Something was wrong.

Rose couldn't die. Like a time lord, except, like Jack, she couldn't regenerate. Her condition was, as it turned out, very similar to Jack's. Some part of Rose had been effected by absorbing the Time Vortex, and it had made her different. Her eyes now were darker than they had ever been. It was the same look she had seen on her Doctor's face, her real Doctor's face, in another time, in another world, another Universe. First his eyes were blue, then they were brown, she remembered. She remembered everything.

The man the Doctor had left her with, he was different. He was not the same. He had so many similar qualities to the Doctor, but he was not him, he was in no way the same. The man she had known, the man she had loved, he was gone. He had disappeared into nothing, him and his little blue box, and it was so much like him to try and be so noble. To try and leave 'him' as a replacement. But there was no replacement. This 'new Doctor' was a man all to himself. He shared Donna's mind, Donna's qualities as well as his own, and he was nice, he was sweet and he was funny. But he wasn't hers. He wasn't the Doctor she had crossed the void for, who had loved her across two regenerations, who had danced with her, laughed and run with her across time and space. He wasn't the man who had died to save her. He wasn't a man who could. She had loved him, in her own way, but it wasn't the same, and both them knew that in the end, it wasn't quite right.

Of all the things to kill this Doctor (who she called George, because he hadn't felt like a John Smith, he had told her) he had died in a car accident. It was so ordinary, so mundane, so like how her Dad had died in the other Universe.

She had cried for him, of course, but only when she was alone. Once he was gone, once he was buried, she just felt cold. Rose had felt alone ever since her real Doctor had left her standing there on the beach, never quite understanding what he had done.

Rose had left England after her Mum and Pete had died. Her brother Tony had died of a brain aneurysm when he was nineteen. The doctors said there might have been something they could do if they had caught it sooner. That had stung. The fact that in the end, it all came down to time. Everyone Rose had ever loved in that Universe was dead.

Rose had moved to Norway and now lived in a chateau on the beach. On her beach. Darlig Ulv Stranden. Bad Wolf Bay. As far as she knew, the only wolf around there was her. Her eyes, once gold, were now black and intense. They had defeated the darkness, but there was so much darkness now left in her. So much heartbreak.

At one time, soon after she had started out with George, she had changed her hair constantly. Every five weeks it would change to a different colour. But she always came back to blonde.

Now things like that didn't matter to her. She didn't have a mirror, but if she did, she would have seen that her hair had stayed blonde, and that like her face, it didn't age. But her eyes were so old.

She kept grating over her windows like a prison, and she avoided the daylight. It was only on nights like this, nights that she felt it. It was a full moon. Rose looked up into the sky. Her black eyes shone.

"Doctor."

And far away, across the void, a man named the Doctor woke


	2. Chapter 2

It had been two days since he had last seen Rose when the Doctor first had the nightmare.

_Rose was standing on the beach with her back to him. The Doctor called out to her, but she did not reply. She just kept walking away. She reached the edge of the beach, her feet sinking into the sand as the waves washed over them. She knelt by the water, still facing away from him. _

_The Doctor reached out for her, catching a few strands of her hair._

"_Rose__…"__ He whispered. Her hair turned to ash at his touch. _

_Horrified, the Doctor stepped back, and as he did so, the figure kneeling in front of him turned. The image seemed to stutter, and as it did so it flickered back and forth between an image of Rose as he had known her, blonde and young, but with darkness in her eyes, and trails of tears down her cheeks and a horrific projection of this creature, barely recognisable, grey skin, black eyes and teeth sharper than razor blades. Blood ran down its cheeks, and sparks like fire danced in its eyes._

"_Bad Wolf.__"__ A voice echoed. __"__Look at what you have done.__"_

_The Master stood in the sea, shaking his head disapprovingly, blood soaking through his shirt. _

"_Look, Theta.__"__ he said, and he smiled._

_Coffins were floating in the sea. The ocean was full of them. _

_Touch. The Doctor jumped. Rose stood beside him, whole and complete. She slipped her hand into his. _

"_Doctor.__"__ she said. _

The second time he woke from the same nightmare, the TARDIS groaned uneasily around him.

"I know, old girl." He said, patting part of the control panel he had apparently passed out on. He had understandably not been too keen on sleeping again after the first nightmare. Time felt odd. Space felt odd, as if there was something bubbling away underneath the surface. And in those dreams, when the 'Bad Wolf' looked at him, it caused his head to split with agony. The TARDIS could feel it too. Something was coming.

The Doctor picked himself up and moved over the main console. Things _were _coming, and very soon, much sooner than perhaps he would have liked, things were going to get a lot, lot worse. He knew that. But this Doctor was defeated now. He had watched the only woman he had ever loved kiss a man who wasn't quite him. He had given her to him. And it had broken his hearts all over again.

He had given her everything he could not be. He would be perfect, undamaged and so very, very human. Because he could be. Because although they shared the same memories, the same face, the scars that riddled the real Doctor went deep. Most of all the ones from loosing her the first time. Why would she want someone so…incomplete?

He couldn't do that to Rose. He couldn't offer her his hand again, knowing that he would hurt her all over again, and that selfishly, he would have to live to see her die.

Running, running, always running. Across time, across space, away from monsters, away from himself.

But for how much longer?

Something in his mind itched. His left hand throbbed. Oh, something was wrong. Something was very wrong indeed.

That same night, he received Rose's message.

_He was standing on the beach again, only this time it was different. It was night, and the beach had changed. houses were built along the grassy shore, but all of them abandoned. A pocket watch was nailed to the door of each of the houses. One house stood alone on the beach, two windows lit with orange light, staring at him like eyes. A baby screamed and howled in the distance. _

_And then Rose was there, standing a little way ahead of him in front of the house, hair blowing in the wind. She seemed to be looked right through him. _

"_Don__'__t worry,__"__ she said, __"__he always comes back. He always comes back.__"_

_Her eyes were wide and haunted. _

"_Four.__"__ She said. __"__Only four.__"_

_The Doctor looked down the beach. There were no more coffins in the sea, but four bodies lined side by side on the sand, the tide creeping away from them. _

"_Who__…"__ He started, but then found Rose was no longer in front of him. It was him. His left hand throbbed in his sleep. His human face looked back at him, the man who he had given Rose to, and smiled._

"_Hello Doctor.__"_


End file.
